NOVEL SIMPLE Chapter 14: Gains
"Moving back to the perks I brought up before, I would like to get clearance for firearm usage."
"For what reason.?"
"Because it would increase my ability to hunt down more mole rats while also making the activity safer for myself. In addition to that, if anything bad were to ever occur to the vault, it would be a pretty useful skill to have in my tool belt that I could use to protect Amata. Not that I think such an event would ever occur, but as you know, never say never."
"Hmm, you make a reasonable argument, son-in-law. I like how you utilized Amata in your reasoning to try to convince me, so I'll give you the authorization you're looking for and we can call it one of your perks for becoming my daughter's future husband."
The overseer, who had now become my father-in-law, then went on to tell me about quite a few other perks and benefits I would receive for becoming his daughter's partner. After he spent a long time going over each and every perk and benefit extensively, I asked him if he could help me out with getting a workshop/research facility set up, and he answered that it would be no problem at all to get that put together for me.
With that out of the way, we discussed several other topics before he sent me on my way eventually and as I was walking back home through the gray vault hallways; I decided it wouldn't be such a bad idea to spend some quality time with Amata, so I changed direction midway and did just that.
Hours later I said goodbye to Amata and made my way home through the seemingly endless hallways of the vault and right as I entered the front door I found dad sitting on the couch. My event filled day just about over with, I walked up to the couch my old man was relaxing on and plopped down beside him and started talking to him.
The conversation began with simple stuff, like how our days went before I eventually steered it in the direction of my engagement and, later, my plans to set up a workshop/research facility. Following those topics, we moved onto talking about some of the other perks I got out of it, which he was already well aware of since he's the one that had a hand in setting it all up.
Upon finishing those topics, I got up and told him I had something to show him since there was no need to hide it anymore. Thus, we both walked into my room, where I showed him the rest of the equipment I had been holding back from him for some time. When he saw all the explosives I had accumulated, as well as my AER 18 LMG, his jaw practically hit the floor, metaphorically speaking.
Ahh, I really wish I had a modern camera like the ones from my old world right about now. I don't recall him ever making that kind of expression. It's unfortunate that I'm missing out on the opportunity to capture his reaction, but it is what it is, I suppose. But I'll definitely have to see about making a decent camera when I get all the modern machinery needed for its production made later down the road.
After adding another task to my list of things to do, he recovered and rejoined me back in reality. Righ as he had, he asked me why I would hide all this from him and I responded that I didn't think he would agree with me keeping a large stash of explosives and a laser light machine gun in my bedroom.
"Of course, what parent would be okay with their kid sleeping next to a pile of explosives that would turn everything around it into a pile of ash, including you, if it were to go off?" Dad said, somewhat agitated at finding out what I've been hoarding in my stash.
"Well, that's kinda the reason why I didn't tell you, dad. I knew you would overreact even though there's no reason to, since I made sure to make them safe to store and carry around with a spring-loaded cap that covers the arming button."
We went back and forth arguing our positions for a while before I prevailed with better reasoning that he couldn't refute. Though if I was being honest with myself, I only really won the argument because I pulled out the puppy dog eyes.
*Sigh*
"Alright, alright, you win this time, son. You can keep the grenades and your laser light machine gun. But please stay away from dabbling with explosives at least and tell me if you're making a new weapon, so I can look it over to see if it's safe and that there are no issues with your design. Can you do that for me?"
"Sure, I can do that, dad. However, I don't think you'll find any faults in my designs because I go over my designs multiple times before I actually start producing or testing them out."
Now that that was settled, I spent a bit more time showing dad some of the things I was working on, probably causing him further stress the more work in progress projects I revealed to him. After doing so for a while, my stomach released a growl, announcing it was time for dinner.
Dad was feeling hungry as well, hence we paused the reveal there, both left my room, and proceeded into the kitchen, where we discussed what we should have for dinner. A few dozen seconds later, we ended up deciding to go with spaghetti with red sauce and some protein drinks to go along with it on the side for me to feed my growing muscles.
*Burrp*
"Ahh, I'm stuffed, how bout you dad?" I said with my stomach just about ready to explode.
"Yeah, I'm filled to the brim, too. That was a mighty good meal." Dad replied while rubbing his belly.
"You go rest on the couch, dad. I'm gonna clean up and head off to the gym."
"You sure you don't want my help?"
"Nah, I got it."
"Alright, I'll let you clean up this time." He said before he got up and wandered over to the couch and slumped down on it, ready to pass out in a food coma.
I spent the next few minutes getting everything picked up, cleaned, and put away, and once I was finished, I sped out of the house to the gym.
An hour later, I returned home and wished dad a goodnight and returned to my room to get some much-needed rest. When I entered, I laid down on my bed and got comfortable. As soon as I found the right position, I opened my Pip-Boy, where I was greeted by the usual freezing of time. A few seconds passed when a holographic screen popped up within my vision, displaying the perk selection screen with a number of new additions.
[ Perks ]
Perk Points Left: 2
Level 2 Perks
| Ambidextrous | Requirements Level 2, Perception 8: Gain the ability to use both of your hands as if they were your dominant hand.
| Junk Rounds | Requirements Level 2: You can craft ammo using junk. It doesn't make any sense, but it works, somehow.
Level 4 Perks
| Cannibal | Requirements Level 4: When eating, human corpses regain health rapidly.
| Child At Heart | Requirements Level 4, Charisma 4: You get along remarkably well with children.
| Comprehension | Requirements Level 4, Intelligence 4: Gain 1 additional skill point every time you read a new skill book.
| Entomologist | Requirements Level 4, Intelligence 4, Science 40: Deal +50% more damage to insects and receive a large amount of knowledge pertaining to that group of organisms.
| Iron Fist | Requirements Level 4, Strength 4: The hardness of your fists increase and deal +5 unarmed damage.
| Rad Child | Requirements Level 4, Survival 70: Regenerate 2 HP a second per 200 rads accumulated.
| Run 'n Gun | Requirements Level 4, Gun or Energy Weapons 45: Halves weapon spread when walking or running.
| Scoundrel | Requirements Level 4, Charisma 4: Barter +5, Speech +5, and a 5% discount when trading.
| Travel Light | Requirements Level 4, Survival 45: While wearing light armor or no armor, your max speed is increased by 10%.
Level 6 Perks
| Bloody Mess | Requirements Level 6: +5% Overall damage and your enemies tend to die more violently.
| Demolition Expert | (Ranks 5) Requirements Level 6, Explosives 50: +20% Damage with explosives.
| Ferocious Loyalty | Requirements Level 6, Charisma 6: When you drop below 50% health, companions gain 50% DR and come to your defense.
| Fortune Finder | Requirements Level 6, Luck 5: Stumble across significantly more wealth and things you consider of value.
| Gunslinger | Requirements Level 6, +25% accuracy when using one-handed weapons.
| Hand Loader | Requirements Level 6, Repair 70: You gain knowledge of all ammo crafting recipes.
| Lead Belly | Requirements Level 6, Endurance 5: -50% Radiation taken from food and water sources.
| Mad Bomber | Requirements Level 6, Repair 45, Explosives 45: Gain knowledge of certain explosive recipes along with increasing the radius of all explosives by 50%.
| Shotgun Surgeon | Requirements Level 6, Guns 45: When using shotguns, regardless of ammunition used, you ignore an additional 10 points of a target's DT.
| The Professional | Requirements Level 6, Sneak 70: Your sneak attacks with all ranged weapons inflict an additional 20% more damage.
| Toughness | Requirements Level 6, Endurance 5: +3 DT
| Vigilant Recycler | Requirements Level 6, Science 70: Waste no material when recycling anything.
Nice I got 2 level ups this time to spend, as expected, for killing 50-mole rats. Hopefully, my guess about my stats going up with combat is correct, otherwise I don't know why sneak went up there. Maybe they just increase at random... That's enough speculation about that. Let's see what new perks I have to choose from and which of them would be best to pick right now, given my current situation.
...
They're not bad but I've been saying I'm gonna pick Junk Rounds for a while now and then never do, so I'll select that one first and look over the remaining choices once more... Ambidextrous would be pretty useful for a ton of different things from crafting to combat to any other task or activity that requires hand manipulation... Yeah, I'll go with that.
My choices made, I confirmed my perk selection and a split second later, the holographic screen changed to show the skill distribution screen.
[ Skills ]
Skill Points Left: 37
Barter: 31
Energy Weapons: 50
Explosives: 37
Guns: 42
Lockpick: 36
Medicine: 52
Melee Weapons: 50
Repair: 57
Science: 56
Sneak: 42
Speech: 47
Survival: 34
Unarmed: 40
Damn, I got a lot of skill points to spend and my skills went up by a handful of points as well. So I suppose my skills do, in fact, increase at an accelerated rate with combat. Although it doesn't seem to be random, I guess that means my stealth skill must've just been sitting on the precipice of an increase.
Now that I know my skills increase at an accelerated rate because of combat, I wonder how combat will affect my S.P.E.C.I.A.L.s, if at all. I'll definitely have to keep a close eye on my stats at all times, going forward to see if it has any effect on them.
With that mystery resolved, I scanned my skills again and didn't notice anything else, so I moved on to see what I should invest my skill points in. After giving it a bit of thought, I decided to split my skill points between repair and science for various reasons. Though mainly because those two skills will help me with crafting better gear and equipment, which will, in turn, improve my ability to survive the dangers of the wasteland.
The very moment I had all my skill points dumped between the both of them, I finalized my skill distribution. Following that, the holographic screen rapidly changed again for the third time in this brief period, now displaying my new and improved stats.
Pip-Boy
Name: Harold Todd Woods
Age: 10
Height: 5,5 (in feet and inches)
Race: Human
Level: 6
Experience Points: 405/950
Total Experience Points Earned: 2,905
Experience Rate: 175%
Health: 510 | Formula: Base of 90 + (Endurance x 30) + (Level# x 10) |
Carry Weight: 146.5/210 | Formula: (150 + Strength x 10) |
Resistances:
Armor: Body Damage Threshold 12, Armor Damage Threshold 41, Total Damage Threshold 53
Poison Resistance: 55% | Formula: (Endurance - 1) x 5 |
Radiation Resistance: 24% | Formula: (Endurance x 2) |
| S.P.E.C.I.A.L. |
Strength: 6
Perception: 10
Endurance: 12
Charisma: 5
Intelligence: 13
Agility: 5
Luck: 7
| Skills |
Barter: 31
Energy Weapons: 50
Explosives: 37
Guns: 42
Lockpick: 36
Medicine: 52
Melee Weapons: 50
Repair: 75
Science: 75
Sneak: 42
Speech: 47
Survival: 34
Unarmed: 40
Traits: |Gifted|, |Sex Appeal|, |Skilled|, |Take Another Rank 1|
Perks: |Ambidextrous|, |Daddy's Boy Rank 1|, |Educated|, |Human Supercomputer|, |Junk Rounds|, |Monstrous Physique|, |Swift Learner|
Mutations:
Gear: |12G Laser Pistol|, |Black Altyn Helmet|, |Black Hardened Metal Armor|, 2x |Combat Knife|, |Guillotine|, 10x |MFC Grenade |,|War Belt|
Loot: AER 18 LMG, 1 Big Book Of Science, 1 Kid's Baseball Cap, 50 MFC Grenade, 194 Microfusion Breeder Cells 50 Microfusion Cells, 75 Duct Tape, 130 Scrap Electronics, 250 Scrap Metal, 5 Serrated Spear, 1 SPECIAL Book, 25 Wonderglue, 869 Other Misc. Junk.
Quests: 0 Ready to turn in, Many in progress, 2 Completed
Quests In Progress:
| Surpass Your Human Physical Limits | Objectives: Reach a value of 11 in every S.P.E.C.I.A.L. Rewards: New Perk?, 10,000 exp, and 10 S.P.E.C.I.A.L. points.
| Save dad | Objectives: Prevent the death of your father, James Watson Woods. Rewards: New Perk? and 5,000 exp.
| Mole Rat Exterminator | Objectives: Kill 100 mole rats. Rewards: 1,000 exp.
| Seeker Of Knowledge | Objectives: Continue to hoover up all knowledge in the vault library till there is nothing left. Rewards: 3 Intelligence Points and 2,500 exp.
| Take Over The RobCo Facility | Objectives: Clear out all hostile forces and set up shop. Rewards: Perk RobCo Certified, 5 Science Points, 2,000 exp.
| Take Over Raven Rock | Objectives: …
| Orbital …
As I was browsing through my stats, I saw another change that I didn't expect to see.
Ohh, would you look at that two of my S.P.E.C.I.A.L.s increased as well. I guess I really have my answer regarding combat affecting my stats now. Nonetheless, I'll still be keeping an eye on them to see if anything else has an effect on them other than training and combat.
After discovering that, I continued looking over my stats and was more than pleased with what I've gained from today's events, those being the increase in two of my S.P.E.C.I.A.L.s, five extra skill points, on top of the couple of level ups I earned.
Those are some pretty substantial gains for such a short trip into the old vault mines. I wish I could go back in there tomorrow to get some more leveling done, but that probably wouldn't be the wisest idea seeing how I just stirred them up. So I'll let the mole rats settle down for a decent while before I return and continue hunting them down and aggravating them, since I can't exactly face off a large mole rat hoard by myself just yet if things were to go south.
As soon as I finished that thought, I gave my stats one last look over and closed out of my Pip-Boy screen, resuming time a few seconds later. And the instant it had, I was met with an overwhelming flood of information and knowledge regarding repair and science.
It took a few dozen minutes, but I eventually awoke from my stupor in my bed and started staring at the ceiling of my room while I went over all the new information I obtained from both my repair and science skills increasing all the way up to 75.
Once I processed all the information, I started thinking about several different ideas and revising my plans. After some time, an idea came to me as I started to drift off into sleep that had a good chance of helping me push my perception to 11. This sudden idea of mine would require multiple pitching machines, a few operators, or possibly some turret-targeting modules to get it all working the way I wanted it to.
As I was finalizing this idea in my head, my eyelids closed shut and I was out like a light zzz…
If you want something else to read, that's similar to this, check out my other webnovel Wasteland Conqueror. It has a lot more chapters released.